


Links To The Past, Ties To The Future

by holdyourbreathfornow



Series: Family of Three [7]
Category: Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anastasia movie, Blood, Bread making, Child Abduction, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Coping with arson, God this fic really has everything huh, Hair scrunchies in a starring role, Inherent distrust of scientists, Inhuman Benrey, Mentions of hospitals, Multi, Mutual Pining, Vomiting, child experiments, family of three au, learning boundaries, mentions of illness, oh before i forget
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26513632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdyourbreathfornow/pseuds/holdyourbreathfornow
Summary: As long as he can remember, Gordon Freeman has always had on his person 1 orange hair scrunchie, and for reasons unknown to him, he guards it with his life.This is a story of the Science Team reacting to said hair scrunchie.
Relationships: Benrey & Gordon Freeman, Bubby & Gordon Freeman, Dr. Coomer & Gordon Freeman, Gordon Freeman/Benrey/Tommy Coolatta, Tommy Coolatta & Gordon Freeman
Series: Family of Three [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918150
Comments: 57
Kudos: 326





	1. Joshua

**Author's Note:**

> This one was inspired by the amazing art kraviolis has made for this AU on tumblr! If you have Tumblr, go check them out! If you found this series because of their art, hell yeah!

Despite his boss telling him the Pueritia Wing is a great place to be transferred, one random scientist has a grand total of one test subject, in one cell of a small complex of about twenty.

At least he’s been working at Black Mesa long enough to be familiar with the sensation of smoke being blown up his ass.

The scientist huffs in frustration and readjusts the papers on his clipboard yet again, walking from his station to the only cell with a label on it.

Inside the cell, it’s almost empty. The walls and ceiling are both gray cement, while the floor is a cold white tile. Even the bed in one corner is an amalgamation of the two colors, a white bare mattress on a gray metal frame. 

The one part of the room that is in any way vibrant is the little boy sitting on the mattress, who curls against the wall and has his knees pulled up to his chin, sniffling with his face hidden.

“Kid.” The boy startles and his legs flatten against the mattress, hands going back to press against the wall as he looks up at the scientist with fear in his eyes. The scientist goes to start a spiel about the next experiment when he sees a different color bright against the tan skin of the boy’s wrist.

“What’s that?” The scientist asks and the boy looks down. His eyes widen and he hides his arm against his chest, his other hand coming up to clap over the orange band.

“You can’t have it! It belongs to my Papa!”

“Oh?” The doctor makes a note on his board. “Well, we could return it to your Papa for you. Would you like that?”

“No, I gotta do it myself.” The boy mutters and the doctor shrugs.

“Alright, kid, whatever. If you behave, I’ll make sure nobody takes it.”

“...Promise?” The scientist looks up and meets the kid’s eyes. They’re bright green and wide, and the scientist thinks of his own kid. He scowls and tears his gaze away.

“Nobody’s gonna be making promises to you, kid.” He flips his papers back down on his clipboard and heads for the cell door. Pausing in the doorway, he watches over his shoulder as the kid curls in on himself a little more. “Better get used to it.”

With that, he sweeps out of the room, leaving Joshua Coomer to sniffle, tears slowly starting to roll down his face as he clasps on tightly to his Papa’s hair scrunchie.


	2. Benrey

The relaxation corner of the Pueritia Wing is the one place Gordon and Benrey can hang out, but it just feels like a slightly bigger cell in Benrey’s opinion. One corner of the wing has weird fake green stuff that they hate the feel of, and they spend most of their time sitting at a small table with Gordon.

Gordon’s using one of Benrey’s claws on their right hand to scratch at the table, determined to dig right through it one of these days.

Benrey’s watching him work when their eyes snag on the orange band around his wrist. Of course they’d noticed it before, but Gordon’s bad memory means he doesn’t remember a lot of things, and it always makes him sad when he can’t remember things he thinks he should.

But he seems to be in a good enough mood now, so Benrey figures they might as well ask. If he gets sad, they can always just tickle him. That always makes him laugh.

Benrey pokes idly at Gordon’s wrist with the hand Gordon isn’t holding, claws almost snagging on the fabric looped around it.

“Gordie got a weird fur patch? Lil blankie boy mutating maybe?”

“N-no, what?” Gordon laughs and snaps the elastic, the sound startling Benrey and causing them to poof up. “It’s for my hair, Benrey.”

“Then why’s it on your wrist?” Benrey gently tugs at one of the hairs on Gordon’s arm and he smacks them. They hiss and he hisses right back, having spent too much time with whatever Benrey is and not enough time with his own species.

...Though maybe, considering everything, that’s more of a good thing than either of them realizes. 

“My hair’s not long enough for it yet.” Gordon idly twists the hair thing around his wrist. “The scientists cut it super short when they first found me.”

“Oh.” Benrey kneads at their thighs awkwardly. “Do you… Want long hair?”

“I dunno. I’ve never had it long.” Gordon smiles at Benrey. “Maybe when we grow up and get outta here, we can both grow our hair out.”

“I’m gonna make you pinkie promise on that, bro.” Benrey wriggles their pinkie finger in Gordon’s face and he shoves them off the bench around the table and onto their back, laughing as they wheeze at him in betrayal. He walks around the table and flops down so his face gets buried in the fabric of Benrey’s jumpsuit, and reaches out his hand to link their pinkies together.

“I promise that when we both get out of here, we’ll grow our hair out.”

“Cool.” Benrey murmurs and closes their eyes, purring when Gordon readjusts to hold Benrey’s hand fully. Gordon snorts tiredly, but he’s already half-asleep so Benrey just stays on the floor and keeps purring.


	3. Tommy

Tommy politely turns his back as Gordon vomits in a corner, woozy from blood loss. He turns back around as Gordon spits to clear the taste from his mouth. Gordon’s hair is long enough to slip out of his ponytail and drape around him, dirty with sweat and multicolored ooze.

“H-how are you feeling, Mr- Uh, Gordon?” Gordon doesn’t say anything for a long moment, his stump pressed against his chest and his stare measuring in at approximately a million miles. “G-gordon?”

“I’m tired, man.” He whines and reaches his remaining hand up, pulling something out of his hair. Tommy realizes it’s the tie holding Gordon’s hair back when Gordon’s hair tumbles down and covers the shoulder plates of the HEV suit.

Tommy finds himself staring, and he almost jumps out of his skin when Gordon locks gazes with him.

“Can you, uh…” Gordon looks away, his shoulders rising up and causing his hair to shift around him, a strand falling over his face. Tommy really wants to reach out and touch it… “Can you pull my hair back for me?” ...Sink his hands into it, when it’s clean of course, and-

And Gordon just said something. 

Gordon just asked Tommy to pull his hair up in a ponytail for him.

Holy  _ shit _ .

“Uh, y-yeah, I can do that! Do y- would you like to sit? We might wanna hurry because of…”

“My arm?” Gordon smiles at him. “It’s okay, dude, you can say it.”

“This will be easier i-if you sit on a crate, Gordon.”

“Okay.” Gordon follows along after Tommy as he locates a crate that’s still intact, and Tommy carefully helps Gordon lower down onto it. Gordon passes him an orange scrunchie and Tommy suppresses a wince at the disgusting state of it. It’s soaked in green ooze and blood, and weighs heavy with it.

“G-gordon… I have some spare rubber bands if you want me to-”

“No!” Gordon whirls around, staring at Tommy with panic in his eyes. “No, don’t get rid of it.”

“I-I wasn’t going to.” Slowly, Tommy lets his hand fall onto Gordon’s shoulder, just close enough to his bare skin to feel the heat radiating off it. “Gordon, if you want to k-keep it, I under-I know how important some things can be.”

“Okay.” The tension bleeds from Gordon and he sighs, curling in on himself a little. “Okay.” He smiles weakly at Tommy and turns back around on his crate. Tommy pauses before stepping closer and starting to comb his fingers carefully through Gordon’s tangled hair.

“S-so, uh… Where… Did you get the scrunchie?” Gordon sighs and fiddles with the hair piece, doing his best to wring all the bad liquids out of it.

“I’ve had it as long as I can remember. It’s some kinda… Link to my past.” He hums a short tune and Tommy snorts as he recognizes it.

“I-is that ‘Journey to the Past’ from Anastasia?” He asks and Gordon bursts into laughter.

“I didn’t think you’d recognize it!”

“Where did you see that?”

“One of the scientists… She snuck in a movie player for me and Benrey. We got to watch a couple… Before someone found it and confiscated it. She lost her job cause of that.”

“Oh.” Tommy sighs. “Well, maybe- Once we’re out of here, we could- Would you want to do a movie marathon?” Gordon doesn’t move, but Tommy can see his smile from where he’s standing.

“Yeah. I’d really like that.”


	4. Bubby

There are a lot of adjustments that come from cramming five people into one house, no matter who those people are and how they care about each other.

Bubby copes with the changes by going out into the fields and seeing how many individual blades of grass he can set on fire before he gets bored, which is how he learns that Gordon relaxes by sitting on one of the porch chairs with a cup of coffee.

Bubby nods silently at Gordon as he comes marching back towards the house, dusting ash off his sweater. Gordon smiles at him, and takes a sip from the mug that’s painted to look like the trunk of a tree. Gordon’s hair is down and with the faint gray streaks showing at his roots, the realization of how much Gordon looks like Harold is one blind side Bubby wasn’t expecting to get smacked across the face with, but here they are.

“...Everything okay?” Gordon asks finally, arching an eyebrow at Bubby, and he snaps out of it, sighing as he nods and sinks down onto the other porch chair.

“Sorry, just… With your hair down, you look a lot like Harold.”

“I didn’t think I was that gray yet.” That makes Bubby laugh outright and Gordon grins a little in triumph.

“Not what I was saying, and you know it.”

“Yeah.” With that, Gordon sets his coffee aside and reaches into the pocket of the oversized hoodie he’s wearing, pulling something out and starting to pull his hair up as he stares off at the horizon.

“So whose hoodie is it this time?” Bubby asks, and Gordon pokes his tongue out at him as he finishes pulling his hair up. His hands drop away and while Gordon’s mouth is moving as he responds to Bubby’s jab, Bubby’s no longer listening.

There’s an orange scrunchie in Gordon’s tangle of curls, but it’s faded with time, almost falling apart now.

“Wh-where’d you get that?” Bubby asks, pointing and ignoring how badly his hand shakes.

“What?” Gordon looks panicked, hand flying up, but when he realizes what Bubby’s talking about, he pulls it out of his hair and hands it over to Bubby. “I, uh… I’ve had it as long as I can remember.” Gordon takes in the stricken look on Bubby’s face and leans back a little further in his chair. He reaches over and picks up his mug, taking a long drink from it. “What is it? Other than a hair scrunchie.”

“This was Harold’s… A long time ago.” Bubby rubs the fabric contemplatively between two fingers, his body already calming down from its spike of panic. He hands it back to Gordon and squeezes his son’s wrist gently. Gordon takes his hand and Bubby takes a deep breath.

“You were sick. Bad enough to need the hospital. But you’d never been without us before. You were… Heartbroken, is a good word. We just wanted to cheer you up.” 

“Why did Black Mesa let me keep it?” Gordon wonders and Bubby can only shrug.

“They’re all sadistic assholes. And they’re all dead, so we won.”

“Yeah.” Gordon pulls his hand from Bubby’s and stands. “I’m gonna… Go talk to Dad. Love you.”

“Love you too.” Gordon disappears back inside and Bubby turns back towards the empty field, sighing as he rests his elbows on his knees and lets his head hang down.


	5. Harold

Coomer hums as he kneads bread dough, his humming occasionally turning into grunts as he pounds the dough into submission. He’s sunk so deep into his work he doesn’t even hear the sliding of the glass door, and he only looks up when Gordon clears his throat awkwardly on the other side of the counter.

“Ah, hello, Gordon!” Coomer swipes sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm. “Is something wrong?”

“Pops told me…” Gordon’s voice fails him and he shuffles awkwardly before he clears his throat and tries again. “He said I have something that used to belong to you.”

“If you’re talking about your eye color, I can assure you these eyes are one of the only parts of me Black Mesa didn’t alter!” Coomer’s attempt at levity falls flat and he frowns in concern at his son, wiping dough off his hands with a towel as he walks around the counter towards Gordon. “Gordon, dear, what’s wrong?”

“Here.” Gordon thrusts out his hand, holding something in it, and Coomer takes it, his gaze darting between his closed hand and Gordon’s pinched face. Slowly, Coomer unfolds his hand.

“Oh.” Coomer holds the scrunchie up a little, examining it. The years haven’t been kind to it, but it’s still completely functional. But Coomer knows where this has been, and he looks up at Gordon. “Did Bubby tell you why you have this?”

“He said you two gave it to me while I was in the hospital to cheer me up.”

“Not exactly.” Coomer pulls one of Gordon’s hands towards him and loops the hair band around Gordon’s wrist. “It was supposed to be a reminder that we love you. We told you to look at it whenever you felt lonely.”

“Oh.” Gordon pulls his wrist towards him and runs his fingers over the fabric. “That’s… I wonder if that’s why I never got rid of it…”

“Well, now you don’t need it for a reminder that you’re loved.” Coomer smiles and Gordon nods, coming back to himself a little and smiling back at Coomer. “You have a lot of people who love you, as I’m sure you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Idly, without even realizing he’s doing it, Gordon twists the hair tie around his wrist. “But it’s still nice to have the reminder.”

“Now that I understand perfectly. Why don’t you pull your hair up and come help me beat up some bread dough?”

“Are we actually gonna bake it this time or is it just stress relief again?” That makes Coomer laugh as he and Gordon head into the kitchen.

“I have no idea! I guess we’ll have to see!”

-

The next morning, Gordon is one of the last people awake, having stayed up late the night before making s’mores with Bubby.

When he comes downstairs, yawning, he realizes he’s the only one in the living room, not counting Matilda already yelling at him for her breakfast. He feeds her but several packages on the counter catch his eye, arranged in a bright decoration of color. Gordon picks one up, and happy tears well up in his eyes as he realizes what he’s holding.

There are four packages of hair scrunchies, one package in a different color for each of the other members of the Science Team. And there’s enough there to last him a couple months without ever wearing the same one twice.

Nobody acknowledges the gifts, but from then on nobody sees Gordon without one scrunchie in his hair and one on his wrist for him to fiddle with.

**Author's Note:**

> Well if you cried at this one you can now cross 'Crying over a hair tie' off your bucket list.


End file.
